Wampum

Lyrics

[Intro]
Quahog heart, dark as a bruise in the sand.
Whelk's white spiral, the ocean's memory.
Before the string, before the drill...
Just a shell.
Just a piece of the sea, held in a hand.

[Verse 1]
A stone drill, held between the knees, turns for a week to make one hole.
A patient hand polishes the sharp edge smooth with sand and water.
Until it shines like wet stone in the sun.
White for peace, purple for a solemn thing.
A story woven, not with ink, but with waiting.
This belt is a treaty.
This string is a promise.
This bead remembers a name.

[Chorus]
It was never money.
Not the way they meant.
It was a language spoken by the hands.
A history you could wear.
A weight of truth, not a weight of trade.
Wampumpeag. The white shell bead.

[Verse 2]
Then the new ships came.
Their hands were quick, their eyes were different.
They saw the gleam, but not the story.
Saw the purple, dark and rare, and made it law in Massachusetts Bay.
A price for bread, a tax for land.
They offered steel for the shell.
A beaver's life for a string of memory.
And the language began to change on the tongue.
The promise became a price.

[Chorus]
It was never just money.
Not the way they made it.
It was a language spoken by the hands.
A history you could wear.
A weight of truth, now a weight of trade.
Wampumpeag. The fading word.

[Bridge]
On Long Island, in a dusty room,
the steel drills whine, a hungry sound.
Spitting dust of shell and bone.
A thousand beads a day fall to the ground.
Poured into barrels like lifeless grain.
So much talking, the words mean nothing.
So many promises, the belt unravels.

[Outro]
And the market broke.
The flood of cheap talk drowned the meaning out.
The beaver gone, the promise broken.
I hold one now.
A purple bead, machine-drilled, too perfect.
It feels light. It feels hollow.
Just a shell.
A ghost of a story, held in my hand.